An airport moving map is a map displayed for a pilot of an aircraft. An AMM may include a variety of objects, such as obstacles, taxiways, and the like. In addition, an AMM may be displayed in two dimensions as well as three dimensions. An AMM may, in either of a two dimensional display or a three dimensional display, include an indication of a field of view of a pilot. In a conventional two-dimensional AMM, the field of view of the pilot may be represented by two indices extending from an icon representing the aircraft being piloted and may terminate at a distance from the aircraft in an arc. Thus, the displayed field of view may comprise a sector; that is, the shape generally enclosed between the arc and the two radially extending indices. The displayed field of view may be further defined, when the aircraft is piloted in the dark and reliant upon one or more lamps for illumination of the actual field of view, by a sector extending away from the aircraft to a distance generally illuminated by the lamps.
Typically, however, although the AMM may display one or more objects, the AMM may not define an area about the one or more displayed objects that may be obstructed by the one or more objects from the actual field of view of the pilot. Thus, although a conventional AMM may alert a pilot to an object in the path of the aircraft, the AMM may not display data about the dimensions (e.g., the distance that the object extends above the surface of the road surface) of the object and/or the area obstructed from view by the object. A pilot may therefore mistakenly conclude that the object does not obscure from the pilot's field of view an area about or behind the object.
In addition, conventional AMMs may not display an indication that a vehicle (e.g., another aircraft or other vehicle) is approaching the aircraft unless the oncoming vehicle (or “intruder”) is within the displayed field of view. Thus, a pilot viewing a displayed field of view may not be alerted to such an event.
Hence, there is a need for an AMM that displays data about the dimensions of an area that may be obscured by an object that is within the field of view of the pilot and/or data about an intruder that is not within the field of view of the pilot.